The Flying Dutchman, voiced by Brian Doyle-Murray, is a green pirate ghost named after the famous fictitious ghost ship of the same name, but in some episodes, he lives undergound. He also has a clearly distinctive Scottish accent. He lives in a giant ship that floats in the underwater "sky". As evidenced in the episode Squidward, the Unfriendly Ghost, many people who worked in a clothing shop used his body as a window display after his death (though his demise was never explained how). Now he haunts the seven seas because he was never put to rest. Whenever he appears, a thunderstorm suddenly occurs, it is always green. Squidward Tentacles once was mistaken to be the Flying Dutchman.

According to the episode: Your Shoe's Untied, he last wore shoes 5,000 years ago. He has won the Fancy Knotting contest for the past 3,000 years and the knots he knows are: Pretzel Knot, Double Diamond Knot, Square Knot, The Constrictor, Gut Knot, Pillow Knot, Butterfly Knot, Monkey Chain, Monkey's Fist, The Monkey and the Loop Knot a.k.a. Poop Loop. In addition, he cannot eat without his dining sock as mentioned in the episode: Shanghaied. For some odd reason, he says "I'm the Flying Dutchman" while snoring. In the episode: Shanghaied the Flying Dutchman generates The Fly of Despair.

The Flying Dutchman once lost his "scare," according to the episode: Ghost Host. He got so carried away, that he stopped scaring for months. He became a couch potato in SpongeBob's house until finally SpongeBob helped him be scary again. In the same episode, he was shown that he had some sort of wedding ring.

When the Flying Dutchman died, citizens used his body as a window display in a clothing shop. Now he haunts the seven seas because he was never put to rest. SpongeBob finds this in a comic book in the episode Squidward, the Unfriendly Ghost while SpongeBob and Patrick were cleaning Sqidward's closet, where Squidward owns the comic book in the closet.